


Too Hot, Too Cold

by lightsgodown



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fluff, Illness, M/M, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-06
Updated: 2013-06-06
Packaged: 2017-12-14 02:58:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/831914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightsgodown/pseuds/lightsgodown
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean wakes up with a fever, and he can't warm up. Castiel helps.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Too Hot, Too Cold

**Author's Note:**

> This is shameless self-indulgence, a result of an insomniatic, fluff-loving girl who loves the everloving crap out of Cas's wings. Enjoy!

Dean groaned when Sam's shoe hit him in the shoulder. "Five more minutes, man," he mumbled, pulling a pillow over his head to block out the ugly glare of the motel room's buzzing fluorescent light fixture. 

"Dean," said Sam's #1 Bitch Voice, "we have a meeting with the coroner in fifteen minutes, and driving is going to take at least twelve of them. Get your ass out of bed." The pillow was ripped away, drawing an admittedly pathetic whine from Dean. He was  _tired._

He stumbled out of bed and tripped toward the dingy little bathroom, accepting the FBI suit his brother shoved into his hands with a grunt. The room swayed ominously; all of a sudden there was an army of little black dots at the edges of his vision and a swarm of fuzzy things in his brain. All his blood seemed to rush to his legs at once, and with a surprised "Whoa!," his face met the carpet.

~*~

He came to a couple seconds later, blinking away the confusion to see a very concerned Sam hovering anxiously above him. "Dean?"

Dean blinked again, forced himself to focus on Sam's face. "What.... happened?" he asked sluggishly. His tongue tasted like lead.

"You passed out." Sam's features sharpened into a recognizable face finally. He was holding a damp cloth to Dean's forehead. The bristles of the over-bleached towel felt like a hive of tiny, pissed off bees stinging his face over and over. "And you're burning up, dude. You sick?"

Dean contemplated the question, his brain working frustratingly slow. But as he thought more, cogs started thudding into place, turning gears. He remembered waking up at some point in the middle of the night and kicking blankets away, thinking for sure he was on the surface of the sun because  _Jesus fuck_ _he was hot_ , except he didn't stop sweating, so his shirt, jeans, boots, even his fucking ring had been discarded in a pile on the floor by his bed.

And then he was so tired that he couldn't sleep. So he'd watched the clock, counted seconds, tried to pick rhythms out of Sam's snores, and dripped sweat. Dean passed out at some point, only to wake an hour later because his teeth were chattering and his skin was prickled with goosebumps. 

Yeah, he was definitely sick. He said as much to Sam and then let his face fall to the side to stare at the floor under his bed, because keeping eye contact and talking was  _hard._  His tie, a blue one with white stitching, had fallen near his head when he'd dropped. If he mustered the energy to really focus on it, he could count individual threads. Interesting.

 Oh, Sam was talking. Had he been talking this whole time?

"-do this by myself," he was saying, tugging on Dean's arms impatiently. "A little help here, man?" he said, exasperated. 

Dean looked at him again. "Huh?"

Sam shook his head. "You  _are_ sick. I was saying, you need to get back in bed, and I'll go talk to the coroner while you sleep. Now come on, stand up."

He hauled Dean back to bed, picked up his dropped suit, and filled a plastic cup with cool(ish) water from the sink, placing it on the nightstand along with a bottle of ibuprofen and Dean's cell. Dean waved away Sam's other worries, saying he "needed to stop mother-henning and go do his actual job," which earned him a pillow thrown in his face and a bitch face from Sam. Then with a final "Call me if you need anything," Sam was pulling the door shut and roaring out of the parking lot. 

Dean was briefly grateful that he'd taught his little brother how to speed without getting pulled over before the army of fuzzy things descended again and he slipped into sleep.

~*~

Being sick was fucking boring.

He'd slept for a couple hours before a particularly vivid fever-dream about a ghost on an airplane woke him up, and now Dean lay in his own pool of drying cold sweat, unwilling to go back to sleep and too cold to do it anyway, cursing daytime television and all its shittiness. There wasn't even a Dr. Sexy rerun playing. 

So he took to fiddling with his phone, scrolling through the contacts and call history just to give his hands something to do. He popped a couple ibuprofen and stewed. 

It wasn't that Dean blamed Sam for going out and continuing the hunt without him. He would've done the same thing, and had on many occasions. It was an unspoken Winchester Rule: The hunt doesn't stop, not as long as people are dying. That meant no sick days - as long as one of them was on their feet, they kept working. No, he didn't blame Sammy - he would have been pissed if he hadn't gone, actually - it's just that he was  _bored._

And, okay, maybe a little lonely. And fuck him,  _cold._

He hit call and pressed the phone to his ear without thinking. It rang once, twice, three times, and Dean was just about to hang up when he answered.

"Dean," Castiel said solemnly, his deep voice leaking warmth through the speaker. "Is everything all right?"

Dean closed his eyes and covered them with his free hand. "Hey, Cas," he said hoarsely. Damn, his throat was dry. He reached for the now room-temperature water and took a long sip.

"Are you okay, Dean? You don't sound well." The obvious wrinkled-forehead look Cas was wearing made Dean huff out a chuckle. 

"Ah, not really. I've got a fever or something, and Sam's out working, and -"

"Where are you?" the angel cut him off. 

Dean groped around in the nightstand's drawer for the notepad and squinted at its header. "Star 8 Motel, in Onamia, Minnesota."

The phone line clicked dead without another word, but Dean had barely had time to think "What the fuck" before a rustle of cloth and feathers announced Castiel's arrival.

He looked the same as he always did, dressed in his trenchcoat and suit with the backwards tie. His hair was messy and wind-strewn, and his eyes zeroed in on Dean's uncomfortable form on the bed. "You're sick?"

"Yeah," Dean grunted, attempting to sit up but only managing it halfway. He slumped back on the pillows and rubbed his knuckles together. "Caught a fever in the middle of the night I guess."

Cas's face flickered briefly to an expression of sympathy. "I am sorry."

A shiver wracked Dean's body. "'S not your fault," he mumbled, gesturing at the twisted blanket on the floor. "Can you...?"

"Of course." Cas picked up the blanket and shook it out. Then he snapped his wrists up and floated the blanket over Dean, surprising him with the gentle settling of the comforter around his chest and legs. Dean pulled the blanket up to his chin and murmured his thanks.

"Can't warm up," he complained.

Cas's mouth quirked up a little. "You should rest. This will pass more quickly if you sleep."

Dean rolled over and cracked one eye open as Castiel knotted his fingers together, still standing. "Stay?" he asked softly.

It was like Castiel's entire body caved in a little at the word. He sat down on the corner of the bed, smoothing one palm over the blanket. "I can do that," he said.

Dean made a content noise, already half-asleep.

~*~

Dean slept peacefully for a long time before the shivers started. Castiel was staring around the room aimlessly, not feeling any real desire to move but knowing that it made Dean uncomfortable if all he did was stare. 

A sleepy groan drew his attention back to Dean, though, and Cas could tell that the poor man was uncomfortable. The blanket was drawn all the way above his ears and his face was pressed into the pillow. What little skin Cas could see was covered in raised bumps, and his teeth were chattering ever so slightly. Dean turned over restlessly and grabbed a fistful of the blanket to draw closer to his chest.

Sam had still not returned, but a text to Dean's phone from about an hour ago said that a lead had taken him to the other side of town and that it could be a while before he made it back. Still, he threw a furtive glance at the door as if hoping hard enough for his arrival would make it happen. It did not, of course, and Dean was growing more and more uneasy. 

He tossed his blanket aside and sat straight up, eyes wide open but unseeing. "Water," he croaked, fumbling for the cup by his bed and knocking it over instead. He stared at the empty plastic cup on the bed and looked for a moment as though he might cry, but then Castiel was there with another cup of cold water. He grabbed at it wildly and drank the whole thing in one long swallow. 

"Dean?" Cas said, leaning down to get a better look at his face. His hair was a wreck, sticking up wildly on one side and matted down on the side he'd been asleep on moments before. Dean's eyes were glazed over and exhausted looking. "Dean, can you hear me?"

Dean shook his head slowly, as though trying to clear it. "Fucking  _cold_ ," he muttered, grabbing Cas's wrist. Then, so quietly Cas almsot missed it, he whispered, "Help, please." 

Castiel paused for a moment. His powers, he knew, were too weak at the moment to fully heal Dean, but he didn't think Dean would fully understand just why at the moment. So instead of telling him that, he simply instructed Dean to move over.

Dean flopped back onto the mattress and scooted over with some effort until he lay on the other end of the bed. Castiel removed his coat, shoes, and tie quickly and climbed in after him without a word. 

Dean looked confused for a second when Cas's arm snaked around his waist, but he was clearly too far gone to question it. He did, however, let out a yelp when a pair of huge wings enveloped them both. He flipped over to stare at Cas, wide-eyed.

Castiel laughed softly and gently covered Dean's entire body with his soft feathers, cocooning the two of them in their own warm little world. "My wings carry their own heat," he explained softly. "I will keep you warm."

~*~

Dean couldn't help but stare at the feathery world he'd suddenly found himself wrapped up in. Sure, he'd seen the shadows of these wings a thousand times over, but that was nothing compared to this.

Maybe it was the fever, but they seemed to shift colors constantly. They weren't one distinct color; it was more like he got an impression of reds and blues and yellows and greens and everything in between. 

Jesus Christ this fever was making him grow a vagina. Dean shook himself mentally and moved his gaze back to Cas himself, whose face wasn't that far from Dean's own. 

He was staring at him with a slightly puzzled but generally amused expression. "I suppose I have never showed you my wings before now, have I?"

Dean shook his head mutely. "Are they... I mean... are they supposed to change color?"

Castiel's eyes widened. "Most humans cannot perceive even the slightest color from angel's wings - they simply see white, or sometimes black."

Dean turned on his back. Castiel lifted his wing slightly to give him some air, but really he was staring at it. "It's not like, one color. It's... shifting."

"Yes."

Dean turned his head back to Cas. "Why do they do that?"

The tips of feathers pressed into his side gently but insistently, pushing him back on his side to face Castiel again. "Go to sleep, Dean," the angel said quietly. "I will explain when you are feeling better."

Dean wanted to say that he was already feeling better - that this wing blanket of his was much, much warmer than the pathetic motel room comforter, or maybe that they were beautiful, but sleep was digging its claws back into Dean's being, claiming him for its own.

"Cas?" he said thickly, stifling a yawn.

"Yes, Dean?"

"Thanks."

Dean didn't see Castiel's returning smile. He was already sleeping.

~*~

Sam stumbled back into the room well after midnight, sore and sweating and nursing a broken finger from a fight with a particularly nasty Wendigo. He dropped his bag on the ground and made his way as quietly as he could to the bathroom, flipping the light on only after the door was shut behind him.

Ten minutes later he stepped out, showered and pulling on a pair of sweats with one hand, holding his taped finger close to his chest. Light from the bathroom spilled out into the main room, giving just enough to allow him to see Dean's bed.

At first he thought it was an animal or a monster or something attacking his brother, and he stepped forward with a strangled gasp. But then Castiel's head popped up and he stopped in his tracks. 

Cas's wings were out, covering both him and Dean, who was hidden under the mass of feathers. Sam cocked his head in the near-darkness, not really comprehending what he was seeing.

"Dean's fever has broken," Cas whispered, nodding a greeting at Sam. "I am keeping him warm."

Sam grinned his approval and collapsed into his own bed. Good old Castiel. 


End file.
